


sonata n. 14, op. 27, n. 2, i

by deanssammy (babylxxrry)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Exploration of Morality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-01 12:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/deanssammy
Summary: sometimes, sam regrets telling his friends things.[or, a common occurence.]





	sonata n. 14, op. 27, n. 2, i

**Author's Note:**

> beethoven. 
> 
>  
> 
> original prompt: “run away. that’s what i’m doing.”
> 
> it.. _ran away_ from me.
> 
>  
> 
> TWs: many things including but not limited to themes of depression, abuse, suicide, existentialism, discussions of morality, etc. the general warnings that my usual short pieces carry should apply to this.

Sometimes Sam regrets telling his friends things. Most of the time, it’s little things like that he’s particularly ticklish on his left side, or that he can’t stand when people use the wrong forms of “your/you’re” or “their/there/they’re”. Sometimes, though, it’s stuff that’s normal for him, but the moment he says it out loud, he realizes exactly how fucked up it is, and he wishes he could take it all back.

_Sam, tell us about your parents!_

_Well, Ms. Koop, my mom isn’t in the picture. My dad works a lot, and he travels a lot, so he’s almost never at home._

_So who takes care of you, then?_

This is when Sam starts to regret things, because he knows the look on her face. He knows the worry and confusion. He’s seen it all before. Usually, it means they’re gonna have to move out of the area soon.

 _My brother._ Ms. Koop’s face relaxes a little. An older brother, she’s probably thinking. Maybe 20 or 21.

_How old is he?_

_Fifteen._

The look of concern, back again. Stronger.  _Oh, okay._

Then, like clockwork, they’ll drop the subject only to pull him aside at the end of the day and tell him that what they’re doing isn’t safe and blah blah blah.

Sam wants to scoff. If only they knew. He and Dean are fine by themselves. Better without John around, even. It’s not that he’s a shitty dad, no, he tries, he does, but he just doesn’t know how to parent. Sam supposes it could always be worse. A few hits across the face and ribs every two months or so is already better off than the poor kids who get beat up every day.

Sam thinks it probably doesn’t help that every time John looks at him, he sees Mary’s face reflected in every feature. It doesn’t help that his continued presence reminds John of what he’s lost, what he’s after to avenge Mary. And the thing is, Sam knows it wasn’t his fault. He knows it wasn’t his fault that he was chosen to be impure from the moment he was born, and it wasn’t his fault that his mom had to die as part of that, but at the same time, he can’t let go of the knowledge that had he never been born, had he never existed, none of this would’ve ever happened. From what little Dean’s said about their lives before Sam, it’d been good. It’d been a happy little family of three and laughter and love. And then Sam came around and fucked it all up.

And it fucking hurts sometimes. It hurts so much that he doesn’t even know how to deal with it except let it out, so one day, he tells his best friend. John’s left them in this town for the past few weeks, hard on the trail of a couple of lone werewolves. In that time, Sam’s been going to school regularly, and he has a friend he talks to a lot. His name is Will. Will is smart and solemn and his accent says he’s not from around here, but he’s nice and not adverse to fun, so Sam gets along with him right away.

“Will, can I tell you something?” Sam asks, perched on the parking lot bench after school lets out. Kids stream around them, oblivious to their conversation.

“Yeah, of course. What’s up?” Will turns his full attention to Sam, brushing his sandy hair out of his eyes.

“You remember when Ms. Koop asked us about our families?”

“I think so. Didn’t you say your mom wasn’t around and your dad was gone all the time?”

“Yeah, well. That’s not really the whole story. I hope you don’t tell anyone else. Please?”

Will nods. “I won’t. Not unless it’s really bad, then I have to, okay?”

Sam swallows. He doesn’t really know what constitutes as _really bad_ , but he knows whatever he’s about to say isn’t _good_.

“My mom died when I was a newborn. Like a few months old, I think. I don’t remember her. Anything. And this is going to sound really weird and stupid but just go with it. Someone was in the house and tried to hurt me. My mom tried to stop him, and he killed her. And a lot of times, I feel like it’s all my fault even though it’s not. Like if I wasn’t alive in the first place, she wouldn’t have died and Dean and my dad would be okay and happy with her.”

Will looks at him with unjudging eyes. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that whenever my dad looks at me, it feels like he knows that I’m fucked up and I’m the one who killed her and it hurts my chest a lot. And it’s not like hurt the emotion. It feels like he’s poking at bruises on my ribs when he looks at me with that face.”

“That’s called psychosomatic pain,” Will says. “It’s pain that’s not real, but your brain thinks it should be so it makes you hurt. My friend taught me that word. He’s really smart.”

Sam shrugs. “Whatever it is, I want it to stop.”

“Run away, then. That’s what I’m doing. Me and my friend are running away to Canada to be moose farmers.”

“I can’t. I can’t leave Dean to take all of Dad’s punches when he gets angry. It’s not fair to him. He didn’t kill someone. And besides, I don’t have anyone else. Just them.”

Will just looks sad at that. “Okay. I understand. I won’t tell anyone, but please be safe. I need my best friend around, don’t I?”

Sam can’t find a real response to that besides a little smile.

They pack up two days later and drive out, and Sam never sees Will again.

On the road, he finds that he regrets telling, because now, someone he knows knows how fucked his family is, and if Will ever told the right people, the government could come in and take he and Dean into foster care. That’s not something he’s okay with. There’s no way to un-tell him, though, so Sam resolves to not tell anyone else.

It works, for a while, the whole not-telling thing.

The next year is hard on them, and Sam spends a lot of time out of school hunting because John insists on field experience. Sam’s good at it, though, and he knows all of the theoretical shit, so most of what he does is learn how to use various firearms and practice making sigils and spells on the fly. It’s a good distraction from his mind. He usually goes to school three days a week, citing a long-running family issue as the reason he can’t make the last two, which is kind of true, and hunts when he’s not at school.

The thing is, the pressure keeps building, and talking to Dean can only relieve so much. Dean already knows everything there is to know about the whole situation, and more. It just doesn’t work to help Sam’s mind. He’s sworn not to tell anyone else, though, so he keeps it to himself. The nightmares get worse and more frequent, and he wakes up screaming or sobbing more often than not, so he stops sleeping until he absolutely has to. He thinks at night, lets the pain claim his entire body until he’s numb and all he can do is stare into the darkness and wonder why he doesn’t just die and free John from the struggle of looking at him.

It’s a fairly regular battle at this point, and Sam’s tired of fighting it, but he has to stick around for Dean, and only Dean, so he does. He keeps fighting his mind every night on semantics of murder and fault and guilt and cause-and-effect and alternate timelines and shoves it down during the day long enough to grit his teeth through John’s looks and Dean’s worried murmurs. And then it’s night again, and he lets go.

_It’s not murder if you didn’t actually kill her. You didn’t pin her to the ceiling on fire. It’s not first degree or second degree, because you weren’t the one committing the murder. It’s not voluntary or involuntary manslaughter because again, you weren’t the one wielding the fire._

_Accessory to murder, then_ , he retorts, gnawing at the inside of his cheek. _Enabling a murder. If you didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have happened, right?_ Blood rushes into his mouth when he bites down too hard, and he has to fight down the wave of nausea that floods through him when he remembers that he’s tasting demon blood.

_So if you’re an accessory to murder, you should, by all rights, be prosecuted, right? Right. So congratulations, Sam Winchester, you’re a murderer on the loose with a price on your head. It’s technically your fault. If you weren’t alive at that point, your mom wouldn’t have died. If you hadn’t been the chosen one, she’d be alive and none of this would be happening right now._

But Sam knows none of those things were under his control. It wasn’t his choice to be born, nor was it his choice to be the chosen one. It’s just that he feels like so much of it is because of him. His mom died because of him. John beats him and Dean up because he sees his wife in Sam’s face, and he sees a murderer when he looks at Sam. He’s never said it outright except when he’s been drunk to the point of blacking out, just once. So the thing is, Sam has no way to fight that particular fact. His father sees him as a murderer, and there’s no getting around it.

And then it comes to the fault and guilt and cause-and-effect portion of the night. This happens to be Sam’s absolute fucking favorite. He wouldn’t trade _shit_ for it. He never knows if he should or should not be feeling guilty about being a murderer, because he really was barely alive when he committed his crime and doesn’t remember anything about it. Doesn’t even remember who he killed, besides her relationship to him. He usually ends up feeling guilty most nights, unless he can really twist his reasoning into such convoluted knots that his brain gives up trying to convince him to be guilty and simply concedes a point. And then fault. Was it his fault? Directly, no. Indirectly, yes. And therein lies another debate that his brain seems to love debating at three in the fucking morning.

He supposes it’s better than nightmares about demons and a woman’s scream and heat flickering too close to his skin. He supposes it’s better than the terrifying premonition-type dreams he has of things to come in the future—yet more death and pain and sorrow at his hands.

This also tends to be the point in time where he contemplates the purpose of staying alive. What’s the point, anyways? If he’s just going to cause others more pain by staying alive, why bother? Why make Dean take care of a murderer? Does that make _Dean_ an accessory to murder?

And then he thinks about the things he’s heard and read. _Don’t be fucking selfish, Sam. I raised you better than that,_ from John. _If you kill yourself and take another piece of Mary from me, you’re no better than the demon that took her in the first place. Although, who am I kidding? You’re half demon anyways._

 _Suicide is the most selfish solution to a temporary problem,_ from a pretty pamphlet on the floor of some church they’d run through in pursuit of a ghost. _Turn to God and pray for the removal of the suicidal feeling and rejoice in your renewal!_

And Dean. Oh, Dean’s reaction had been the most surprising of all.

_I know, Sammy, I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Come here._

Dean had opened his arms and pulled Sam up in a tight hug, soothing his mind and taking away the pain for just a moment.

Sam thinks he might be addicted to that feeling of painlessness and that’s yet another thing he’s been fighting recently. He can’t fall for his brother. He can’t. He just can’t. There’s so many things wrong with it, on so many levels. He can’t be in love with his brother on top of everything else.

Though, he supposes, he’s kind of super fucked up already. What’s one more thing?

So he lets go and lets the darkness reclaim his mind.

The night is still young.

 

//

**Author's Note:**

> i'm thinking about starting a series of dos-style things that don't specifically relate to the dos, but rather are inspired by/fit with certain pieces of music. thoughts?


End file.
